In sickness and in health: what the human genome reveals about us – May 2014 #valleycafesci

If you are intrigued (and perhaps apprehensive) about studies of the human genome, and the applications of genomic screening towards your own personal health, you will not want to miss our next Café event! We are delighted to announce that our Cinco de Mayo event will feature an old friend of our Café’s founder Madhusudan Katti! Dr. Vishwanath “Vishy” Iyer, Professor of Molecular Genetics and Microbiology at the University of Texas at Austin, met Madhu in junior college (equivalent of high school in the US) in Bombay, in the early ’80s. After failing together to get into medical school, and training to become biologists instead, their paths diverged towards different ends of the biological sciences spectrum when they came to graduate school in the US a quarter century ago. Vishy is now a leading expert in genomics, having trained in some of the labs (at Harvard and Stanford) that pioneered the methods and technologies for unraveling the secrets of the genome. He will give us an overview of human genomics to help us navigate through the coming era of personalized medicine:

What the human genome reveals about us in health and in disease: Personalized applications of genome science
The sequencing of the human genome more than a decade ago was a milestone in the field of human genetics. Over the last several years, increasing use of genome sequencing and attendant experimental, technological and computational advances have generated much excitement, and promise to greatly improve our understanding of how the genome shapes human biology. This talk will give an overview of human genomics, focusing on its relevance to health and heritable diseases, and also discuss what genomics has revealed about genetic variation among individuals and populations, and human evolutionary origins. Genomics is now revealing the genetic underpinnings of many common diseases like diabetes, heart disease, mental illness and cancer. Large consortium projects are engaged in understanding how the genome functions. Sequencing of cancer genomes has uncovered previously unsuspected genes whose mutation in tumor cells can drive cancer. All of this information, together with recent breakthroughs in cellular reprogramming and genome editing, herald an era of personalized medicine where diagnosis, prevention and treatment of diseases are tailored to individuals based on their genomic makeup. At the same time these advances raise issues of privacy, access, discrimination and impact on burgeoning healthcare costs.